During the past few years I have developed an increased taste for and interest in tea. My house is full of different kinds of teas: black tea, green tea, white tea, roibos tea and various herbal teas. I have a couple of books and websites I check to find out about the properties of all the different teas and about how they are supposed to be prepared. So, when I read about the Twinings Design Competition, I spent a good deal of time online looking for information about it. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a lot, but here is what I could gather.

I was able to find just one picture of the winning project, Erica, designed by Dino Favero, but wasn't able to make much out of it. In any case, Erica is a sphere that includes all the accessories needed to make tea, organized in a spiral: a water boiler, a tea measuring spoon, a tea box, cups and plates.

The other really interesting and original project, that didn't win a prize but deserved special mention, is Tamara Ferioli's "Attimi di te". The project consists of a mattress, a pillow and a blanket all made out of treated used tea bags. Unfortunately I couldn't find any pictures online, but I can assure you that it looks really good. The only picture I saw of it was in Il Venerd/ di Repubblica (18.02.2005).

There were many other interesting projects like the Roll-Tea, or the two tea spoons inspired products: "Il cucchiaino" and "Mio time" (see picture at the beginning).